UK noise-pop battle royale of sorts with three songs each from Joanna Gruesome (Cardiff) & Trust Fund (Bristol). Joanna Gruesome continue to display more than a passing familiarity with the early 90s Slumberland Records catalog, mixing syrupy sweet female vocals with blasts of mega-fuzzed guitar much like Velocity Girl or Black Tambourine before them on “Coffee Implosion” & “Jerome (Liar).” Those two tracks are essentially pages ripped from the same book as last year’s Weird Sister LP, but “Satan (Desire Edition)” is a literal revision of that album’s closing number, slightly toughened-up in the fidelity department but otherwise not drastically transformed. Meanwhile, two of Trust Fund’s three contributions, “Reading the Wrappers” & “Scared,” owe some heavy debts to the sort of helium-voiced poppy punk (but a little too well-mannered to be pop-punk) for which the world has Superchunk to either thank or blame. There’s a charmingly scrappy, homespun quality in their sugary boy/girl trade-offs that probably would have hit me right in the heart when I was a sad teenager spending too much time in my bedroom making mixtapes with “Driveway to Driveway” on them, or listening to college radio shows dominated by the likes of Sarge & Rainer Maria (so basically, fifteen years ago). Do you have a secret desire to relive the state of all-ages indie rock scene of 1998 all over again? Trust Fund can potentially make this happen for you. (Reeks of Effort/Happy Happy Birthday to Me;reeksofeffort.bandcamo.com / hhbtm.com)

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